The 950-ton span fell directly on to a busy roadway at the university’s main Miami-area campus. Video shows vehicles underneath the bridge were hit.
In initial reports, Alejandro Camacho, a spokesman for the Florida highway patrol, said:
“Several people were killed. I just don’t know how many.”
At a press briefing on Thursday afternoon, authorities would not confirm numbers, saying only that victims were transported to area hospitals in unknown condition.
Bill Nelson, Florida’s senior US senator, said he feared the number of fatalities could reach double figures. “We can’t pinpoint any number but I can tell you over my conversations with a bunch of people it was between six and 10,” he said. “But everything was in such flux, you can’t count on that until you know.”
Dr Mark McKenney, the chief surgeon at Kendall regional medical centre’s trauma unit, said his hospital received 10 patients, two of whom he said remained in “an extremely critical condition” on Thursday evening, one with significant head and chest injuries and one in a coma.
McKenney said of the other eight: “Everything from bruises and abrasions all the way to broken bones, but all in stable condition and no brain injuries.” He said other hospitals locally had also treated victims.
Munilla Construction Management, which installed the bridge, said in a statement the bridge suffered a “catastrophic collapse, causing injuries and loss of life”.
There were unconfirmed reports that workers were conducting a stress test on the bridge when it collapsed, and Miami-Dade police chief Juan Perez said construction workers were believed to have been on top of the structure at the time.
The bridge connects the university with the city of Sweetwater and was
installed on Saturday in six hours over the eight-lane highway, according to a story that was posted on the university’s website. It was 174ft (53 meters) long and weighed 950 tons.
The bridge was intended to provide a walkway over Southwest Eighth Street, one of the busiest roads in south Florida. An 18-year-old FIU student from San Diego was killed while trying to cross the street near campus last August, according to local media reports.
“We are shocked and saddened about the tragic events unfolding at the FIU-Sweetwater pedestrian bridge.”
Another witness, student Jonathan Munoz , said he and a professor ran to the scene after the collapse and saw “a scene of chaos”.
“I heard people were screaming, I thought it was a car accident,” Munoz told CNN. “This intersection is very busy. There have been fatalities from students being struck, that’s why they built the bridge.
“There were doctors from the medical school on campus who came over in their white coats, figuring out who they could immediately get to.
There were police and construction workers, it was a chaotic scene. No one knew exactly what to do.”
According to the Miami Heraldconstruction crews had spent several months erecting support towers on either side of the roadway, and cranes lifted the walkway into place on Saturday morning.
The $14.2m project was funded by the US Department of Transportation.
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